So we hear about these overseas investors buying up Australian properties. I'm curious about the financial mechanism for this - how do people get their overseas wealth into the country to pay the 1M+ for a Sydney property? I imagine they don't use Wise at that level. Or do they? In the spirit of OzBargain, is there an expensive or inexpensive way to do it?
I promise I am not a criminal. I don't have the physique or the people skills.
Most banks have minimal fixed fee when transferring same currency.
Say, USD funds transferred from the USA going to an Australian HSBC USD nominated account will have the minimal ($27??) fee.
No FX conversion to AUD.
Not all banks suck.
Say, USD funds transferred from the USA going to an Australian HSBC USD nominated account will have the minimal ($27??) fee.
No FX conversion to AUD.
So you've gone and transferred a load of USD to a local-held USD account and you want to buy a house. Great! What currency is used to buy property within Australia? Answer: AUD.
So now you have to transfer your USD into AUD, and a retail bank (especially a retail bank in Australia) is not a good place to do this.
Not all banks suck.
What Australian retail bank do you use that gives you the spot rate (or anything close to it) for FX?
I had to transfer money to buy property a while back. Can't remember the exact figures, but it was along the lines of "hey, I can use the banks, or I can not use the banks and use the savings to pick up a secondhand car".
Banks are a rip off versus money transfer services though, right?
OFX
Steam games refunds
Shopback cash out
All financial transcations by Australia's over $10,000 get flagged as potential fraud and apparently investigated. You could just be purchasing a car, gold, Bitcoin, shares, a semi-famous painting…
The short answer is it mostly depends on where you transfer the $ from.
As far as AU government concern, you can bring as much money as you want into Aus. As long as someone bring it in through the proper channels, the AU government isn't gonna stop them and complain: "oy, you, stop stuffing more $ into our economy".
Some countries couldn't care less if you transfer your whole net worth overseas (US, UK, NZ…). For those countries, bank transfer would be easiest, as long as you don't mind the FX rate.
Some countries have very strict regulations on wealth outflow (China, Malaysia, Vietnam…). So for those countries, one would need to employ the service of a remitter. I have heard someone actually made around 10 round trips over few years period to personally bring in enough cash for a property purchase.
cash in a bag ;)
Nice try ATO
There is just so mcuh garbage and misinformation in the news you read.
Most of these people are just wealthy.
A lot of them are allowed to buy properties, just one for them to live in.
There are a lot of overseas wealthy people, way more than there are people in Australia.
Get the news to hype it up and this gives the impression that there are just droves of overseas people people millions of dollars for properties in cash.
$1-2m is not much when we are talking about international transactions.
One of the commodity companies I used to consult for did over a $1 billion a year in international transactions, they had less than 20 staff.
A lot of people have a lot of money. The media outlets just sell the hype to the rest of the general public so they can get ad revenue.
There is nothing illegal to transfer money out of a country. What is illegal is the means of how that money was obtained or made.
Spefically I believe you're referring to China, where the government imposes capital controls on money going out of the country. It's frowned on in China, but it isn't illegal here on the Australian side for money to come into the country.
Jewellery
Use a broker.
They have bank accounts in multiple countries. Investor A from country X deposits money in broker's account in country X and the broker transferred funds from their australian bank account into their client's desired accounts
If you have to ask then your net worth isn't high enough. Wealthy citizens of a particular nation are often able to bribe political diplomats to bring cash in their luggage into the country. Their baggage is not checked and nothing is declared. Cash is then laundered through a network of local businesses - set up for migration and or laundering use. Obviously everyone gets a small cut along the way, but keeping their money in their home country is not safe and people are increasingly anxious (for good reason).
I did a few transfers over the years, just needed to show the contract of sale for the property you are interested in to the bank and you can transfer close to that amount. They just make a note in the system and that's it. Helps to have a good relationship the RM as well.
transferring money internationally is not difficult at all, wire transfers are cheap and easy. However the reality is the beat up of foreigners buying up all the property is nothing more than media preying on the ignorant for click bait. They represent a tiny portion of the market.
The same way you would send money overseas?
Lmao why are you acting as if Chinese money is dirty cash or something illegal?
This thread shows that most OzB are broke and have no idea what sending money/doing business across borders entails.
Bank transfers - very easy.
Australia welcomes foreign funding flowing in, but going out will be not as easy as going in.
Crypto
I use Doctor Evil "$1 million dollars" bank transfer
You just transfer it in. It's not a big deal.
In true government fashion, the government has only implemented something for foreign residents selling property. 12.5% of the sale price is paid by the buyer to the tax office and then the foreign resident claims it as a tax credit.
You see, the government wants to make it easy for foreigners to buy our land but sort of pretend it isn't so.
Is this Chinese buyers jacking up price real or a myth? I understand in Asian suburbs, these guys tend to bid silly/crazy. They'll bid up places like Chatswood/Hurstville etc"
But I don't see crazy Chinese buyers paying over the roof and pricing out people in all the other suburbs that are not popular with their diaspora? I mean I don't own any property, so my words mean exactly jack all, but been attending a lot of auctions lately, not seeing crazy Chinese buyers people talking about (unless I go to their area… then that's different story).
I think if they have extended family, relatives etc in Australia, they can send the money with a bank transfer and providing a short letter saying it is gift.
No questions asked and not taxed as well.
At least this was my experience when buying our property in Melbourne. My parents (non australian) sent appeoximately 30K AUD as gift. And all we needed was to provide a gift letter to commbank. And if I’m not mistaken there was no limit.
Bank transfer, SWIFT code, easy.
People say bank transfer, swift code and easy have never transferred large amount into Australia lol
Transfer money into law firm's trust account?
Buying farms and water rights.
Generally just SWIFT
Otherwise crypto
or diamonds in the prison wallet and a nonstop flight.
Wow
All this money from corruption, drugs, human trafficking and money laundering “secretly” moving into Australia?
Wonderful! We need more dirty money and criminals in this country lol
Forex broker is safe
The problem is probably at China's end - after all the CCP hates money leaving the country for no good reason.
I'd imagine it's something like "I'll pay Mr. Qian $10million Yuan, and his associates in Australia will pay the equivalent to my relative in Australia minus fees for the service"
Then later on Mr. Qian will do some sort of fake business deal to transfer more cash reserves to his Associate in Australia so that it gets past the CCP monitors.
Wire the money into Australian bank account.
yes I'm guessing this mostly happens with 'relatives' with whom there is some cultural expectation of obligation
except for those odd uncles who don't - and then there is pain to be shared …
Does anyone know the cheapest (and legal) way to get a substantial amount of money out of Australia and into the US (e.g., best exchange rate, low fees)?
If only under $100k, Wise can do it for example.
If you have a business and want to transfer >$100k or even millions, use Wise business account or Revolut business account or Airwallex for example.
mint copies of charizards
Using a bank, unless you have some special arrangement for minimal fees and (more importantly) money market FX rates, is quite costly for house buying amounts of money.
Banks really suck. And can also be totally incompetent- I know two people who went through multi month dramas because the banks messed up the transfers and had to get the monetary authority involved.